An hour and a half later Malcolm was in his chambers in Lincoln's Inn, opening his letters and dashing off replies, to be posted in due time by the obsequious Malachi. Malcolm found so much to occupy him that he decided not to go to Queen's Gate until the following evening, and sent Anna a line to that effect. He felt a quiet evening at Cheyne Walk would be more in harmony with his feelings. As he crossed the broad space at the foot of the steps in Lincoln's Inn, he overtook Caleb Martin wheeling the perambulator. Kit had her new doll hugged in her thin little arms. "Oh, dad, do stop," she exclaimed eagerly; "it is the gentleman what gave me my baby;" and then Malcolm stepped up to the perambulator. "Kit has been looking out for you the last week, sir," observed Caleb in his humble, flurried way. "She won't even take notice of the pigeons; her heart is so set on thanking you for the doll. It is my belief that she thinks it is alive the way she goes on with it." "My baby's asleep--should you like to see her open her eyes?" asked Kit with maternal pride. "She has blue eyes, she has, like dad's and mine--only prettier. She is just the beautifullest thing I ever saw, ain't she, dad? and Ma'am says she must have cost a lot." Malcolm smiled, but there was a pitiful look in his eyes. Even in these few days Kit's face had grown thinner and more pinched, and the shrill voice was weaker. There was no longer a stiff halo of curls under the sun-bonnet; they hung in limp wisps about her face. "Has the child been ill?" he asked, and then Caleb looked at him in a dazed, nervous fashion. "Not to call ill, sir, but just a bit piny and dwiny from the heat. Our place is like the Black Hole of Calcutta for stuffiness. She is that languid and fretty that we can't get her to eat, so my wife made me take her out for an airing." Malcolm pondered for a moment. Then a sudden inspiration came to him. There was a fruiterer in the Strand, and he was just thinking of carrying a basket of fruit to Verity. He bade Caleb follow him slowly, and a few minutes later a great bunch of roses and a paper bag of white-heart cherries and another of greengages were packed into the perambulator; some sponge-cakes and a crisp little brown loaf were also purchased for Kit's tea, and then they went rejoicing on their way. As Malcolm walked on he made up his mind that his first act when he arrived at the Crow's Nest would be to take counsel with Elizabeth. "The child will die if something is not done for her," he said to himself; "perhaps she will be able to suggest something;" but it never occurred to him to confide in his mother. "Individual cases do not appeal to her," he had once said to Anna. "She prefers to work on a more extended scale," and though Anna contradicted this with unusual warmth, Malcolm had some grounds for his sweeping assertion.